


When Margaret

by ezilo



Category: The Underland Chronicles - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Angst, F/M, Growing Up, Happy Ending, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-14 06:05:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13583844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ezilo/pseuds/ezilo
Summary: "When she was six, Margaret realized quite suddenly that her brother was not normal."And other milestones in Margaret's relationship with her brother.





	When Margaret

***

When she was six, Margaret realized quite suddenly that her brother was not normal.  
Because normal people don't curl up in panic when someone shoves them.  
They don't talk to roaches.  
Or wish for a girl with violet eyes.

(« No one has purple eyes Gregor, what are you talking about ? »  
« She did, she did ! »)  
They call him a freak. Margaret ignores them. She knows the world isn't really that mean. And her brother is simply different. Right ?

Lizzie tells her not to worry but Lizzie doesn't understand, and Lizzie is too busy being brilliant to notice anything.

***

When she was eight, Margaret got forgotten by Gregor. She waits on the steps of her school, and she's cold. Mom and Dad hadn't even thought about coming to pick her up or asking Gregor to do so or reminding him of it. It just seemed natural. Gregor picked her up. Gregor did the groceries. Gregor did the laundry.  
She walks home on her own, and she isn't even scared. The world does not scare Margaret Campbell ; why would it ?  
Her mother throws a fit and talks of responsibilities and of what could happen and points to the floor. Margaret doesn't understand, her father disappears into the shadows, Gregor ducks his tear-struck face and. Runs away.  
Eventually he comes back and dirt clings to his clothes and blood to his fist. Mom asks if he was in Central Park. « Why do you care? ». He's crying deep in the night and she tells him it's okay, it's okay, these things happen, her still child-like (because she isn't really still a child, is she?) fingers stroking his hair. He believes her. She's not sure she believes herself.

***

When she was ten, Margaret got abandoned. Gregor moved out, with stiff hugs and half-promises to come visit to her parents. He smiles to Lizzie and she answers distractedly. But truthfully. She appears to understand.  
He softens when he looks at Margaret and holds her against him and she feels safe and has a vague thought that safe shouldn't leave.  
But it does.

***

When she was twelve, Margaret got beaten up. She clung to her torn backpack and refused to go home. She wandered around the city and spent too much time stranded in Central Park staring. In the end, she rings at her brother's apartment who answers disheveled and throws out some girl who was in bed with him to gather her up in his arms and cry at the thought she will know have scars, rock her gently and tell her he was going to fix this, princess, he was. Her smile is blurry with tears and he helps her hide her bruises from Mom and Dad and says he'll come see her more often.  
The next day, those who gave her scars can't even go to school. Victory and disgust flare up in her chest at the thought of what he has done to them.

***

When she was fourteen, Margaret got a normal life. She was gossiping about boys and noticing girls and working a bit and laughing a lot. She was thinking less about the haunted brother and more about the cheerfulness of friends and the quiet happiness of her parents. When she was fourteen, Margaret stopped seeing Gregor as her hero. When she was fourteen, Margaret grew up.

***

When she was sixteen, Margaret lost a lot but repaired more and found better friends and worked more and really laughed. Her brother told her he didn't recognize her, his princess anymore and she cried and threw the plastic scepter she had kept as her favorite toy, as the memory of them, at him and told him she wasn't his princess anymore, that he hadn't done anything for her, and that she never intended on being his princess again. When she was sixteen, Margaret broke her brother's heart.

***

When she was eighteen, Margaret knocked on her brother's door with a smile and brownies and he told her he had missed her, and he was so so sorry. She said the same. And gifted him a childish drawing, made many years ago, of the two of them with crowns on. « Princess and Prince, we are royal siblings, right? ». So, at eighteen, Margaret became Boots again.

***

When she was thirty, Boots had a child, a beautiful baby boy, and she knew his name was going to be Gregor.

**Author's Note:**

> Hoped you liked it! I know it was kind of angsty. But I mean the Underland Chronicles are meant to be angsty!


End file.
